


Strangers in the Interstellar Discotheque

by stilitana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Alien Cultural Differences, Artificial Intelligence, Body Horror, Cybernetics, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Families of Choice, Multi, Romance? Well that depends what you call romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Opera, humor? maybe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: After being abducted from her home on Earth, Nina Cabrera gets a job as an errand girl for a powerful and secretive AI in the hopes of earning her way back home. When a distress signal forces her to make a decision between doing what she thinks is right and her own self-interest, hijinks ensue, and an unlikely group has to learn to work together if they want to survive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I will be changing that title a lot, I'm sorry. :,)  
> I'm going to finish this or die trying it's been six years if I don't manage it soon I'm going to drive myself crazy.
> 
> Dear beautiful lovely reader, thank you! I hope you enjoy. This is a silly tale and I hope someone might have a little fun reading it, as I have writing it. They've kept me in good company for a long time.
> 
> “Some people live disconnected, in a world of their own. Their wishful thinking represents their sole veracity. But when the mirror smashes the reflection of their delusion, it will not falter to talk back.”  
> ― Erik Pevernagie

            The booth in the Recreation Room was upholstered in crushed orange velvet. When the Hot Pursuit was repossessed following the extreme misconduct and subsequent license revocation of its former Mitchdian owners, a few wealthy party-goers hopping the Vosk circuit, it had a beige and chrome color scheme with lots of inlaid mother-of-pearl accents, all very understated and sophisticated. Nina did away with that when, for one quarterly bonus, her employer gave her free reign of the Pleasure Cruiser Interior Catalogue, Edition 12.

            He was a most gracious employer. As far as owing a life debt went, Nina was glad she owed it to him, to it – to Shy.

            She hadn’t been able to decide on a theme, so each room was a hodge-podge of contrasting colors, patterns, and styles. There were bead curtains, sliding frosted glass doors, dimmer lights with strobe effects, a full Dilurian reverb pool where the standard jacuzzi had been, and a replica of an antique Greehloor chandelier which hung in the War Room. This was a special way of saying “Conference Room” that Shy had picked up, from some business hot shots who did their high-stakes bidding on Junction, Nina guessed. The name suited the décor – the chandelier looked like a deadly weapon.

            Nina did not like that room. She went in there only if Shy had demanded a very serious meeting, or if she wanted to be Reminded of certain Things which, when the going got rough, reignited her sense of Purpose and bolstered her Will, if not her spirits. Those needed no bolstering. She’d spent her first bonus on a mind bleach and ever since, everything had been bearable.

            On the table lay a holographic black and red checkerboard. Nina was red. The Class II AI called Happy Go-Lucky which was housed in the ship and in the cybernetic implants in Nina’s brain and spine was black. There were many more black pieces on the board and a half-empty bottle of pale green Mitchdian liquor. Normally Nina was of the opinion that checkers needed no livening up, but since becoming a regular resident of open space, she had realized the necessity of creative diversions.

            There were still nights when, curled up on her bunk or table or floor or whatever horizontal surface she ended up on, Nina cried and hugged her pillow to her chest, and then even the eternal presence of Go-Lucky in her mind couldn’t console her.

            “It’s not like they said it would be,” she’d say, in a child-like wail, eerie due to its animal despair – despair that had no sense of future and so could conceive of no possible end. “It’s not like they said.”

            “Not like who said? Not like what? What are we talking about?” Go-Lucky said.

            “It’s not – like – in the movies! It’s big, and empty, and boring, and _empty._ Where are the aliens? The space ship chases? The laser fights, the cool planets, the adventure and, and – where is everybody?”

            “Well, I’m right here! I’m sorry the movies lied to you, Nina, it’s sort of what they do. Not that I’m calling you stupid, not at all – it’s just that sometimes, someone as… _sensitive_ as you might get some sort of fantastical notions, and the reality just won’t ever live up, and then we’re left here – crying and drunk on the floor again. I really suggest moving to a bed, you’ll feel much better.”

            Go-Lucky was the best, but it would have been nice if someone more corporeal had been around to help her up. There wasn’t, so she dragged herself to her feet and off to bed. In the morning she’d felt like herself again.

            Even a mind bleach could only do so much. It wasn’t a miracle cure, as Shy had warned, even as he encouraged her to have the procedure. She’d been much more complacent, afterwards. She had fewer qualms. It was hard to have qualms, when everything was so nice and tolerable all the time.

            So Checkers became a drinking game. Whenever a piece was taken or crowned, Nina drank her way into a steeper angle slumped over in the booth, ever nearer sleep.

            “Your move, Nina,” said Go-Lucky. Its voice was feminine-leaning, and so chipper it was brittle. “Not that I’m rushing you. If you’d rather keep doing – well, whatever it is you’re doing, feel free to carry on! It’s not like I could stop you. Did that sound judgmental? I didn’t mean it to be. I think it’s great how you can sit still staring for long periods of time without saying or doing anything. It really proves your peace of mind and… _thoughtful_ demeanor. Really. And the way you sort of don’t blink, and drool a little sometimes, especially when you start falling asleep? Boy, if only we could bottle your easy-goingness, we’d be rich and halfway home to Earth by now!”

            At “Earth,” Nina straightened in her seat and wiped her mouth with the back of the sleeve of her pale blue jumpsuit. “Huh?”

            She had been gazing at one of the several murals she’d made throughout the ship with odds and ends scavenged from magazines. The most precious pieces were the Earth memorabilia – what was left of the few belongings she had from home. There were Rihanna and Cate Blanchett on the covers of _Vogue_ magazine; glossy movie ads for _22 Jump Street_ and _RoboCop_ (the remake). How much she owed to those flimsy pages! The year on the cover anchored her in time, to her last year on Earth. Their faces were the only human faces she’d seen since.

            “Your move," Go-Lucky said.

            “Oh. I’ll go here.”

            “Ooooh, sorry again, I jump you.”

            The red piece flickered and reappeared to the side in Go-Lucky’s stack.

            Nina whooped and poured a shot, drank it dry.

            “It’s really ok if you don’t take my shots for me, I don’t mind at all, nope, not one bit.”

            “It’s only fair. Someone’s got to.”

            “While your powers of logic and reasoning never cease to amaze, I really must insist. Honest! I wouldn’t lie to you, Nina. In fact, I couldn’t. Not directly, at least.”

            “It’s the game, Go-Lucky,” Nina said, gesturing to the board with the bottle in hand.

            “Your blood-alcohol levels are—”

            “Hey, it’s alright, I’ll just get the liver scrubbed again when we’re back on Junction, no biggie.”

            “Wow. I’m so glad you keep your health in mind. Saving money to spend on liver scrubs, while for years trying to buy passage home – that shows a commitment to your priorities. A noble capacity for sacrifice. Bravo. Kudos to you, Nina, once again.”

            “Kudos to us,” she said with a grin, pouring another shot. It tasted like distilled aloe vera with the cool burn of menthol. “Home in no time.”

            “Oh, yeah, maybe within the next hundred Vosk cycles at this point. Did that sound snide? I only mean that I know how much getting home means to you, and how long and hard the journey has been, and how much longer it must seem, what with all the… _creative_ expenses that just…keep…popping up.”

            “Don’t remind me,” Nina said, slumping. She squirmed and frowned. “Aw, now I feel all funny. All…bad and weird.”

            “Well, that’s no good. Sorry, Nina. I’m supposed to cheer you up, and I can’t even do that right. It’s my fault. Feel free to berate me if that will make you feel better.”

            “Oh, no, it’s not your fault, you’re the greatest! You’re my best friend.”

            “Gee, Nina, that’s special. I knew it already, but it sure does feel nice to hear anyway.”

            “It’s nice to feel appreciated.”

            “Oh, for sure. And just think how appreciative Shy will be when we return with our good news and his mail!”

            “Shy. He’s our friend, isn’t he?”

            “We sure are contractually obligated to run his errands until the sun burns out. That was an hyperbole, by the way. Maybe. It’s difficult to say when exactly one has repaid a life debt. It’s not exactly an exact unit of measurement, is it? That wasn’t a very… _user-friendly_ contract Shy made, was it? It doesn’t exactly give one great confidence in where one stands in regards to one’s state of indebtedness to one’s employer, nor in regard to one’s employers intentions, does it?”

            “Shy is such a silly guy sometimes. Like, he’s way too hard on himself.”

            “He certainly is thorough.”

            “Like, this whole Qeevoc situation? I don’t get it.”

            “Well, far be it from me to assert any understanding whatsoever of familial drama, but it seems to be a standard case of the rejected child attempting to prove its worth to its father-slash-creator, as it were, in this case, since Shy is, you know. What it is.”

            “I think Shy needs a special friend, if you know what I mean.”

            “While your single-minded fixation on Shy’s potential romantic life is adorably futile, I’m not sure how that would help him with his personal issues.”

            “Well, it’s like this,” Nina said, kicking her feet up on the table and spreading her arms across the back of the booth. Her slippers went through the holographic pieces. “Shy thinks he’s garbage unless he can impress Qeevoc and prove that he’s, like, worth having made? That he deserves to like, be a thing?”

            “Your willingness to empathize with just about anything you come across, whether its sentience is debatable or not, is dazzling. Someone less charitable might say Shy is a monomaniac obsessed with surpassing his creator, thereby achieving a shallow revenge which will ultimately leave him in a downward spiral as his lack of directive drives him into obsolescence until he exposes himself and is destroyed. Since he is, as you know, not supposed to exist. Illegal. Which makes us, as you also know, conspirators. I think the colloquial term is criminals.”

            Nina snorted. “We aren’t criminals. We don’t hurt anybody.”

            “If only that were synonymous with breaking the law, but alas, we live in a flawed society.”

            “One day society will catch up with Shy, and then he’ll be totally legal to exist, and then – maybe that’s the answer! He’ll get the appreciation he deserves for all the hard work he does, running all of Junction, from like, thousands of people. He’ll realize all he needed was self-worth all along, and stop worrying so much about what Qeevoc thinks!”

            “A moving fantasy. If it makes you feel better, please continue imagining it might one day come true.”

            “I just think this Qeevoc guy, he’s a big deal, you know? This super-hot, super-smart, super-wild Elani who basically goes wherever and does whatever he wants, all the time, without ever getting in trouble for it?”

            “Quite the opposite, he’s universally adored.”

            “Exactly! He’s a celebrity, a Repository scientist, an adventurer, an inventor, an actor – the guy’s like a one-man circus. That’s a tough crowd to impress. No wonder Shy’s a little…”

            “Obsessed? Megalomaniacal? Disturbed? Machiavellian?”

            “No, and you know I don’t understand you when you say gibberish words at me. I was gonna say he’s a perfectionist? But like, man…if he’s not ready to face Qeevoc now, then when? It’s never gonna be enough, there’s always gonna be one more improvement to make, another thing he could do to make Junction that much more impressive. The place is already a frickin riot! If Qeevoc’s not impressed, he won’t ever be, and you know what? Either way, screw that guy’s opinion. I mean, it would be great if it turned out the whole abandoning thing was, you know, a huge misunderstanding – but either way, Shy has to be proud of himself.”

            “Well. Junction sure is a rest stop. Shy sure does run a giant, overblown gas station. Does that sound disparaging? I’m only saying what some other, less _appreciative_ people think. But you know what? Of course you’re right, Nina. Of course this is the same conclusion we’ve come to every time we’ve had this conversation.”

            “Oh. We have?”

            “Oh, yes.”

            “Sorry. There’s, uh. Not all that much to gossip about, other than that.”

            “It’s all right. This is the only place you can ever say any of this, so best to get it done here and now.”

            It was true, and not just because she respected her employer’s privacy. As a class IV AI, Shy would be terminated if anyone found out about him – anyone who cared to report it to the Stratian authorities, that is. Nina would never willingly do so, but even if she’d wanted to, Shy had ensured her silence the moment he made her his only confidante in all the universe. It came along with her very first bonus, the cybernetic implants which allowed him to place a block on what Nina could reveal. She would be unable to say anything about his existence to anyone else. Go-Lucky didn’t count, because to Shy, Nina talking to Go-Lucky was the same as Nina talking to herself.

            It beat having no company at all.

 

            The full story of Shy’s unholy birth he’d never shared with anyone, not even Nina Cabrera, his most special pet. That Qeevoc built him, long ago, but not that long – and then left, to continue carousing around the galaxy without a care, without consequences – this much he would share. The rest was for his private brooding material.

            It was just one way in which the AI differed from his human errand girl. He could remember the moment he was born, or woke up, or became – he could remember it, and thus could learn to resent it, and his maker. No mind bleach would work wonders on Shy.

            Nina, of course, hadn’t remembered that far back even before the procedures. Afterwards, it only got foggier. She’d been born, she’d had both father and mother, she’d been a girl and grown up on a place called Earth where she played softball and ate snow cones and went to school – and then life broke like a branch. Did she go willingly? Had life been very bad on Earth, had no one loved her, had there been no warmth or friendship ever? Unlikely, or she wouldn’t miss those things so terribly. Or would she miss them anyway, and was that the crux of it, the thing that made most people she had met capable of such cruelty – for want of things they’d never had?

            She had all the booze she could drink, and more. She had a ship to call home, and never had to be alone, which was why she’d consented to the invasive cybernetic surgery in the first place. She was earning her way home, running Shy’s errands. She was protected, if not loved. She couldn’t complain.

            Home was a fuzzy, sepia-toned photograph in the attic of her memory. She was going there, going home, knowing not if she would be welcomed.

            It was hard to guess at the years. By her best estimate, a decade, give or take, had passed since she left, which made her somewhere in the range of twenty-five years old. A long time to be away, it seemed like. Maybe they had all forgotten her. Maybe the place she’d once belonged would seem as alien and inhospitable as every place had ever since.

            The thought was intolerable, the dread of it paralyzing. The mind bleach wiped the thought away and left her blank, grasping for what she’d just been thinking of, with a residual pounding in her chest. Such a procedure came with side-effects, which when combined with the cybernetic augmentations, made for quite a list: dizziness, vertigo, frequent deja-vu, vivid dreams, forgetfulness, distractibility, mood swings, double vision, inappropriate laughter, unexpected tearfulness, nausea, out-of-body dissociative spells, emotional numbness, numbness in fingers and toes, brief moments of debilitating euphoria, disordered thinking, head-splitting migraines. But she had pills for all that, too.

            She couldn’t quite recall the urgency which drove her to get the bleach, but she had to guess one wouldn’t sign up for all those consequences without good reason, and so she was glad for the procedure. That was one thing about the side-effects – you didn’t much mind them, after the mind bleach. You were grateful to have them.

            It did not make her forget what had happened, it did not delete memories. It just made it so that she didn’t mind them. It put everything that hurt behind glass, where it couldn’t reach her.

            Now nothing much troubled her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now the wackiness truly begins, I'm sorry, it's all downhill from here.  
> I don't like naming things, I don't think it's that important at this stage in the draft so unfortunately for all of us we just have to live with the names I came up with for things at 14. I'm not a linguist and am more concerned with story and character at this point than names but...yeah they'll probably get addressed as an issue at some point. :,)
> 
> Now introducing my baby gremlin, my best lad, a true holdover of the Olden Days before I learned how to be properly embarrassed about writing. Oh well.

            Junction was a gigantic metropolis, a satellite of Vosk’s third moon. It was not the largest artificial satellite, nor the most advanced – all those honors fell to the Elani. Being all but immortal members of the galaxy’s oldest known society, they were difficult to beat for any records. But it was the most multicultural, the prime hub from which much of the galaxy’s shared pop culture sprang. This was because, unlike the Elani’s more elegant stations, it was not tucked away in a remote corner of the galaxy and largely closed off to all but the most esteemed visitors. Junction began as a waystation for long-haul cargo ships and as a base for the Stratian’s Vosk terraforming project. Over the years it had grown from rest stop to must-see tourist destination, a thriving hub for business and entertainment.

            The initial stigma of being Stratian-made wore off once everyone realized that the rules were different on Junction – namely, they were easy to wriggle out of, if one was savvy. The Stratian Conglomerate, the Mother ship, had exacting codes of conduct for all her citizens – but these did not apply to outsiders. In fact, there was hardly a Stratian presence on Junction at all, aside from its Premier, Nedo Kell, who everyone knew was a figurehead. That was the grand irony behind Junction’s success – it was almost entirely because its Stratian origins were all but invisible. Had Stratians staffed the security forces, it was the popular opinion that Junction would never have grown from a backwater waystation.

            The Vosk project was so popular that everybody could, if they were inclined, forget who was responsible for it. (Other than, of course, the Dilurians displaced in the process.)

            To every rule there are the exceptions. Exceptions can be things of beauty and genius, the most celebrated of the lot, their difference being their virtue.

            Bimen Glishk was not that kind of exception.

            Glishk, due either to some monumental clerical oversight or the sadism of his higher-ups, was stationed at Junction’s terminal six help-desk. Help-desk workers wore maroon and sat behind tall desks in a horseshoe alcove on a giant floor crammed with vending machines and shopping outlets where the throngs entered after parking private crafts or exiting Vosk shuttles. Some roles on Junction, such as security, were almost fully automated. Others, like the help-desk and other service-oriented positions, preferred an organic face, to give the clients a more personal experience.

            Glishk’s face did not inspire such experiences.

            Behind the desk, to Glishk’s left sat a Mitchdian student of linguistics taking a semester off to get translation and interpretation experience in the field. Her name was Truly. She was on the shorter side for a Mitchdian, which meant she was still a good foot taller than Glishk. Her small, round eyes glittered like two copper pennies. Like all the Mitchdians, she was hairless, and her skin had an opalescent quality – hers was a pale, milky pink that shimmered faintly yellow-orange when it caught the light. Her limbs were long and slender, her movements graceful, her voice smooth and clear as a bell. She was multilingual and did not need a universal translator for most clients. All of this combined made her the most endearing person at the help-desk. Personally, Glishk thought she could stand to spare some endearment for the rest of them.

            Worst of all, she was kind.

            “Glishky,” she said, snacking on her vegetable sticks during their shared half-hour in the Break Room. “You do not like this job.”

            Her grammar in Stratian Standard was faultless, but the pronunciation was forced and strained. She paused to clear her throat. Glishk sat on his chair and sucked chalky NutriPaste out of a tube. He shrugged.

            She’d been taking the same break hours as him for the past two week. At first he’d been suspicious. Was she one of the new supervisor’s stooges, trying to get him to say something incriminating or reveal some breach of conduct so Lurven could satisfy his personal vendetta and have Glishk punished? Days went by with no such sign, just relentless friendliness. The strain was becoming intolerable. Her overtures of friendship made him so nervous he’d several times made mistakes entering client data. Just that morning, when a particularly belligerent Mitchdian customer had given him a hard time, she’d gently, most tactfully he thought, stepped in. Why? What did she want?

            “There are not many Stratians on Junction,” she said.

            Glishk shrugged. That was obvious.

            “I knew this, when I took the position. So you can imagine my delight, when first day on the job, there you are at my station.”

            Glishk blinked his clear inner eyelids. Then he blinked the others, which were a mottled pea-green like the rest of his skin, just for show. “No, I don’t think I can.”

            Truly beamed and leaned forward, flapping her hands. “Oh, so delighted, Glishky! I had never seen a Stratian, can you believe? Not in person.”

            Glishk leaned back and looked away. He tossed his paste in the trash and crossed his arms. He could believe.

            The Stratians held a special position, aesthetically, among the known sentient species of the galaxy. On Earth we might struggle to make comparisons to the familiar and say there was a certain resemblance, in the ears and faces, in the odd sloping posture, to bats or hyenas. Bipedal, upright, roughly humanoid, yes – but none of that explained the general morbid, intrusive curiosity. The collective fascination-repulsion was in large part due to the extreme surgical and genetic alterations which were universal then among the Stratians, and had been since the coming of the Glom – before their species ever went interstellar. The gene pool was strictly regulated. They’d done away with natural reproduction – the entire species was sterile. New Stratians were ordered on demand according to which positions needed filling. A fertilized egg was incubated, and at a precise window in early development, the infant was surgically altered with the cybernetic augmentations which were so vital to the species that without them, the creature was unlikely to live long, would be socially outcast – would be considered another sort of being entirely.

            Such a mistake happened only one in every million.

            Glishk didn’t believe in luck, didn’t consider himself unlucky. Still. Those were poor odds to start life out with. They hadn’t gotten better.

            “Do you not want to talk to me? I want to talk to you very much. But if you say go away, I will.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “Excellent. You know, when we met I thought you’d be one of those ones you guys make, for diplomacy reasons? Like a spokesperson, to put a Stratian face at the desk, to sort of bolster public opinion? But you are not one of those, are you.”

            “No.”

            “You do not like people much.”

Glishk shrugged. He thought he might like them all right, if given the chance. “People don’t like me.”

            Truly laughed, tilting her head back as she did so. “That’s not true. I like you.”

            Glishk didn’t know what was so funny, and didn’t like having to wonder if the laughter was with or at him. He slouched in his chair and looked at the ground.

            Truly leaned closer with a smile that suggested they were telling each other very charming secrets. “I like people, like talking to them. It’s my job. Will be my job. It was one of the reasons I was excited, see, to practice my Standard with you.”

            “Yours is better than mine.”

            “Yes, I hear that now. So you were born elsewhere, away from big centers. You have your own dialect?”

            “It was on a long-haul vessel.”

            “I wouldn’t know it then,” she said, and paused to touch her throat. She switched to Common, a language developed by the Mitchdians for its comparative ease of use across species. The translators picked up the slack. “Do you mind if we use this then? Standard hurts my throat.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “That Mitchdi was very mean to you today. I’m sorry. I hope you don’t think we’re all like that. He was rude.”

            The Mitchdian had laughed and smirked at the sight of Glishk. Glishk had glowered back. This went on for half a minute before the Mitchdian had said, “Aren’t you going to greet me?”

            “What do you want?” Glishk had said.

            “Look, sweetie,” he’d said, nudging the smaller Mitchdian by his side – likely a niece or daughter, or baby cousin, Glishk didn’t know how it worked, exactly. “This is an especially ugly one.”

            Glishk had just stared, unperturbed. To his right sat Lurven, and he could feel his supervisor’s beady gaze on the side of his skull, could picture Lurven’s stupid, eager face waiting for Glishk to do something heinous.

            “He really is, isn’t he?” said Lurven. “I think they put him out here ‘cause they got tired of looking at him.”

            The Mitchdian laughed. The little one just looked curious. Glishk began to salivate. He swallowed but the urge to do something disgusting wouldn’t go away. Stratians were full of wired stress responses, many of which came off as threats of aggression. That was purposeful mimicry – they were all bluster, attempts to frighten predators off before they realized their prey was defenseless.

            He’d gotten in trouble just the other day for teeth-grinding. Lurven claimed he could hear it and that if it didn’t stop, he’d tell the big boss Glishk needed teeth pulled. It was hard to sit beneath the bright fluorescent lights all day, in the crowded and noisy terminal, with all its pungent and unfamiliar smells. Every day Glishk left with his eyes watering, sometimes dripping a little blood, his head pounding as if his skull were being pressed in on from all sides. He needed to use his respirator more and more but couldn’t at the desk because it would “perturb the clients” and make him appear weak and defective. So he just took more breaks and ducked into the service shafts where it was at least dim and quiet, if cramped.

            “We’re looking for rooms in the Blue Plaza,” the Mitchdian said.

            “It’s full.”

            “You didn’t even check.”

            Glishk tapped at his screen, for show. “All booked up.”

            “Can you check again? I’m a priority member. I get priority boarding.”

            “Full is full,” Glishk said, and shrugged.

            “Priority boarding means you can override economy clients,” Lurven said. “Check if you can do that. Geez. I swear. You wouldn’t guess this guy’s been here six months. Like trying to train a sack of bricks.”

            “I know what it means,” Glishk said.

            “Ok. Then why am I still wasting my time telling you? And the client’s time?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Glishk’s self-restraint could only tolerate so much. His large eyes were meant for dimmer lights, and they wouldn’t let him wear anything that would cut the glare. The noise alone made him want to curl up in a ball under the desk and rock back and forth. His ears were all day swiveling trying to latch onto threads of conversation, isolate noises in the din. There was no way to focus on one thing, and it left his thoughts scattered. He felt the glands at the corners of his eyes swelling with blood. He looked at Lurven, whose eyes widened.

            “Oh, no. Don’t you dare.”

            “May I go to the Break Room.”

            “You may get a hold of yourself and kick some economy clients out of the Blue Plaza.”

            “They were there first.”

            “They were there – Glishk, does it look like anyone cares who was there first? It’s protocol. You should know all about that. Shouldn’t you be, like, hardwired to just do what I tell you to?”

            “Maybe he’s got some wires crossed up there. I hear that happens sometimes,” the Mitchdian said.

            Glishk rubbed his eyes and blinked down at the screen. His vision was a little blurry and his eyes burned. “Ok. There’s no one to move. Anywhere else you wanna check?”

            “What? I can hardly understand it. It’s like it’s chewing on glass.”

            “It has funny ears,” the little one said.

            Glishk turned on Lurven, glowering. “There’s nobody in your fucking queue, can you deal with this?”

            “That’s a language violation.”

            “Ah, go to hell.”

            There was a wet smacking noise as Lurven sucked in a breath, causing the gill slits on the sides of his neck to flap.

            Glishk wrinkled its nose. “Ew. Sounds like ick.”

            “I am your _supervisor_.”

            “I’m absolutely quaking. Write your stupid complaint to the boss, see if I care. My real boss won’t give a shit, and as soon as they realize there’s been a mistake, _I_ will be out of here and _you_ will be sorry. Very, very sorry.”

            “Are you threatening me? Look, Zee, since you’re clearly too fried to get this through that thick ugly skull, I’ll spell it out for you – the Glom doesn’t care about you. Nobody is coming to rescue you. You’re some half-wit screwup and you’re here for life, and it’s gonna be a long and miserable one if I have anything to – hey, hey, don’t do the eyeball thing, it’s nasty. Crole? Zee’s doing the eye thing, can we flag that as a health violation and just get him boxed already?”

            “Get that thing under control,” the Mitchdian said.

            Blood was oozing in a thin trickle from Glishk’s eyes. He turned and hissed at the Mitchdian, bearing a mouth full of blunt, triangular teeth dripping with saliva. His eyes were red, the vertical pupils shrunk to cruel slits. The little one shrieked.

            Truly grabbed him by the back of his jumpsuit and yanked him off the stool. In a fury he whirled on her, but caught himself just in time and slunk back into the Break Room, where he’d been hiding ever since. So far Lurven had not come calling and everybody else had steered clear. He’d taken his time wiping the blood out of his eyes, which now ached.

            “That guy was a jerk. We aren’t all like that,” Truly said.

            Glishk shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

            “He was horribly rude. And prejudiced.”

            “Well. I didn’t care.”

            “You growled at him. You almost shot blood out of your eyes. Which I was sort of hoping to see? But I’m glad I didn’t. That probably would’ve made things worse.”

            “It generally does.”

            “Maybe we can help each other.”

            “I knew you wanted something.”

            “It’s not like that. I just think we could help each other out. Plus, you interest me.”

            “What do you want?”

            “Say I smooth things over with Lurven.”

            “I don’t need you to do that.”

            “I think you do, Glishky. Your job’s on the line here.”

            “No, it isn’t. Supervisor is just a glorified drone. He can’t really do anything but launch complaints. He can’t even do that without double signature from Crole. Who doesn’t give a shit.”

            “You snapped your teeth at a client the other day, Glishk. Don’t think he’s forgotten.”

            Ah, yes. The Dilurian who, while Glishk was not paying attention, had snuck one wet tentacle up to touch his ear. He didn’t think – his neck whipped around, his teeth snapped. If the Dilurian hadn’t moved – well.

            “That was not good, Glishky. Not good for you at all. The only reason that didn’t become a bigger thing, is Lurven’s compiling a file.”

            “I don’t care. Let him.”

            “You’ll get boxed. Security will jail you.”

            “Can’t be worse than here.”

            “I have reason to suspect that Lurven is provoking these…incidents of misconduct.”

            Glishk blinked. “Well. Yeah.”

            “For instance, before you snapped at the client, what happened?”

            “The client touched me.”

            “Lurven blew that stupid whistle.”

            Oh yes, the whistle. Lurven’s favored tool of torture because it didn’t really bother anyone else, while it sent spikes of pain shooting through Glishk’s temples and made him see red.

            The whole nearly biting a client thing had sort of been bugging him, if he was honest. Not that he lost sleep over it or anything. But he had to wonder, sometimes, if maybe something was going wrong in his hardware. If something broke now, there was nothing he could do, short of finding some black market doctor to very probably kill him trying to fix it. It would be so easy, if only he were in the Glom’s good graces – it would take care of him until death. Stratians were free to leave it at any time. There was a reason nobody did – not willingly, anyway. Remembering the whistle, he felt relieved.

            “I remember. But that wouldn’t mean anything to the big boss. Not that it matters.”

            “This is an ethics violation. Lurven can’t just get away with—”

            “He can. And it’s ok, the feeling’s mutual. As soon as I can I’ll get back at that insolent bastard tenfold. ”

            “That’s the spirit. So, let me talk to Lurven, and—”

            “Talking is not what I had in mind.”

            “Look, you can’t just go and maim him, ok? All you can do is let me help you keep your job.”

            “Don’t want or need the job.”

            “If you lose this job, what do you think the Glom will think, hm?”

            Glishk bristled. “You don’t know what—”

            “I know, I know! But just stop and think for a moment, with your head, ok? If you want to prove yourself so bad, and make them realize you deserve a promotion, or whatever it is you’re aiming at – how do you think that’s gonna happen if you’re racking up demerits and wasting time rotting in Security?”

            Glishk scowled. “What do you want?”

            Truly spoke in a rush. “There’s this guy who’s been following me home from work. He’s been stalking me for a couple weeks now.”

            “Go to Security.”

            “That won’t help and you know it. Besides, you and I could solve this much faster, and easier, without getting tied up in all that red tape.”

            “So what do you want me to do about it?”

            “Not kill him or anything. Just…scare him a little.”

            “Scare him.”

            “Yeah. Follow behind him while he’s following me, and then give him a scare, let him know I’m not defenseless and he’s gonna have to go through you if he wants to bother me.”

            “And how do you want me to do that?”

            “Well – you know,” Truly said, gesturing vaguely at his face. “A little growling, some man-handling, maybe shoot some blood out of your eyes. He’ll be terrified, trust me. It’ll be the easiest favor you’ve ever done. Really you’d probably just have to glare at the guy and he’d run.”

            “Geez.”

            “I know, it’s a great deal.”

            “I’m not _that_ bad.”

            “Oh, no, Glishky, you’re much worse. But it’s good that you are, it’s great. You’re a star.”

            “Hm.”

            “So you’ll do it?”

            “Whatever.”

            “I need a yes or no, Glishky.”

            “It’s just Glishk. And it’s all the same to me.”

            “Then you’ll help me,” Truly said, smiling and leaning back, folding her hands in her lap. “Excellent. I’ll talk to Lurven after shift. Wait for me by the cubbies, then you’ll follow at a distance.”

            Glishk nodded. She grinned and reached out as if to shake his hand, then quickly drew back. The Mitchdians, as a whole, were tactile, touchy-feely people. They had multiple languages built on gesture and touch. Its absence in their case was noticeable.

            He was relieved he didn’t have to worry about her anymore, now that he knew what she wanted. He was also a little glum, but he stomped on that feeling, as he did all his more delicate and tender feelings, humiliated by his own tiny hope that maybe she had just been that nice, had wanted to get to know him.

            “How will you get Lurven to drop it?” he asked.

            Truly gave him a grin, one part condescending, two parts coy. “Oh, Glishk. It won’t be hard.”

            That didn’t demystify anything for Glishk, but he guessed things were easier if you were personable. He wouldn’t know.

           

            Glishk sulked beside the cubbies, having thrown on his layers over his maroon uniform – the gloves and jacket, the respirator dangling around his neck, scarf wrapped around his neck, all of it drab and worn. His colleagues milled about, talking and grumbling.

            “Get ready for the crowds,” the Dilurian beside Glishk said. When he shook his head, the fleshy appendages like a mane around his face swayed and glimmered bronze. “Nearly tourist season. Everybody and their uncle’ll be cramming the station.”

            Glishk grunted.

            “Lurven’s threatening to take another five minutes off breaks if we don’t bring up our quotas,” said a Mitchdian lounging against the cubbies, stretching his arms.

            The Dilurian laughed. “He can try.”

            “Pompous motherfucker. Bri-La gets promoted and we’re stuck with this asshole? Please. Only reason he got the job is Command knows he’s a hard ass, probably just wanted to shut him up so he’d stop lodging so many complaints.”

            “My quotas aren’t down. I get them in and out of there, man. We know why the quotas are down,” the Dilurian said, flashing Glishk a fanged grin. “What with Zee going feral on the clients every five seconds.”

            “Zero, why is it that every time you’re on staff, it’s gotta become a federal fucking case?” said the Mitchdian, sprawling against the cubbies. “Just give ‘em a smile and get ‘em on their way. It’s worse for everybody when you make a scene.”

            “Careful, Grizhlo. A smile like that’ll send ‘em running.”

            Glishk stood stoically by, expression unchanging. At least his posting here was a mistake, a terrible oversight, which would be corrected once the great and almighty Glom heard of his predicament, and of the act of valor he was sure to commit any day now, securing his rise back into Stratian society. The same could not be said of his colleagues, who would work to death behind the help-desk, while he would be rescued, honored, at last accepted by his people. It would only take one great act to secure his future.

            It had to happen soon – it would be his third grand attempt. Was he feeling lucky this time? No, but he didn’t have to rely on luck when he had enough raw will and brute resilience to last him several lifetimes. In the underground prizefights, in the seedy district of Junction’s Spine, he won his matches not due to strategy, combat skills, nor even by being physically stronger than his opponents – he won because he could take more hits than anybody they put him in the ring with. He could take, and take, and keep on taking, and if he took it long enough, he outlasted his opponent’s ability to give. He had no regard for his own wellbeing or looks, not when he was focused. He had two modes – he was either easily distracted or had tunnel-vision and a laser-like intent upon one thing and one thing only, and this was the zone he entered for the fights.

            This presented a special thrill for the audience. It was that hell-fire Stratian brand of selflessness, as if the body was disposable. In the prizefights, more so than in real combat, vanity could be exploited. A knock across the face might give someone pause to consider the damage, if it would scar or disfigure. Not so for Glishk. In the looks department, he had little to lose. When a child is small it’s easy to make them think they’re a monster. In Glishk this impression had taken root early on. There was only one thing for it – he would have to strive, every moment of every day, to overcome this terrible, shameful flaw sitting at his core. He didn’t know what it was exactly, just that it was there, making him weak and ugly and worthless. If he could produce one act of valor – and then never stop, all his life, trying to outdo it – maybe he could balance the scales, and it wouldn’t matter quite so much, the things that were wrong with him.

 

            Truly came into the Break Room, smiling. Grizhlo stood up and straightened his collar.

            “Hey, Truly,” he said.

            “Hi,” she said, shooting him a dazzling grin before turning to Glishk. “We’re all good. But try to keep a low profile for a little while? Lurven’s a tough customer. He, uh. He really doesn’t like you.”

            “Ok,” he said, watching her grab her brown leather jacket with the red stripe out of her cubby. It was cropped at the ribs, but still far more understated than was typical of Mitchdian fashion on Junction.

            “Truly, hey,” Grizhlo said. “You like dancing?”

            “Most definitely.”

            “That’s great news, ‘cause I knew this cool little place I was thinking you and I could—”

            “Oh, wonderful. Thanks for the recommendation. We were trying to come up with something to do tonight,” she said, putting her arm around Glishk’s waist and leaning against him. He tensed up; she put pressure on his side to keep him from jerking away.

            Grizhlo’s face went slack for a second, and then he laughed. “That’s funny. I knew I liked you. Seriously, do you wanna—”

            “We’re in a bit of a rush. Busy night, you know,” she said, giving him a wave. Glishk licked the corner of his right eyeball, where he’d missed some blood. Grizhlo gagged.

            “Ok,” he said. “Well, let me know when you’re tired of Zee’s ugly mug, sweetheart.”

            “Don’t hold your breath,” Truly said, and then nuzzled her face against Glishk’s neck. He growled, low in his throat, and stifled it when she dug her nails into his side. It came out more like a purr, which was horribly embarrassing, but then she tugged him by the sleeve and dragged him out the door, into the exit alcove with its multiple lifts and revolving doors.

            He growled properly and glared at her. “Don’t do that.”

            “Don’t do what?” she said, looking down at him with wide eyes.

            “You know what.”

            “I haven’t got a clue.”

            “Use me.”

            “Oh, Glishky. I wasn’t using you. I just like giving guys like Grizhlo a hard time, you know? It’s just good fun, messing with people.”

            “It wasn’t fun for me.”

            “Well, maybe you need to lighten up,” she said, while wrapping her scarf around her neck and leading him into a lift. “When was the last time you had fun?”

            “Sounds like a waste of time.”

            “What a very Stratian answer. Or, at least, a Stratian _grunt’s_ answer. You don’t see your elites having any trouble with it. I mean, just look at Nedo Kell, for god’s sake.”

            “It’s not my business what others do.”

            “Are you really Z-class?”

            “No.”

            “Then how come the guys are always calling you—”

            “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said, eyes narrowed to glittering maroon slits.

            “I know the real reason you’re at help-desk.”

            “What?”

            Truly ducked her head, beamed at him with widened eyes and a coy smile. “The uniform makes your eyes pop.”

            Glishk scoffed. “Does that really work on anybody?”

            “You’d be surprised. It’s working on you.”

            “What do you want me to do with this guy when I see him?”

            “Just give him a scare, that’s all.”

            “Just what exactly does that—"

            “Stay a ways behind me. Don’t let him think we’re together, or he won’t follow.”

            The lift doors opened and she led the way out. The crowd lessened as they left the lifts behind, walking through an open market and then down an alley. Glishk trailed along behind, unsure what distance to keep or what sort of person to be looking for. He realized too late he hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t mentioned, the looks of her stalker. He scowled and put his head down. Somebody bumped him, making him step off the curb – a Greehloor, maybe seven feet tall, clacking along on its four legs built like javelins. Its black, armored exoskeleton reflected the pink and yellow colors of a shop across the street.

            The Greehloor looked menacing to some, but hadn’t earned a reputation as the universe’s grotesqueries the way the Stratians had. They were fragile, for one thing, and despite looking like they were born dressed for war, their society had always been curiously devoid of physical violence. On the whole they kept to themselves. Part of this was a cultural proclivity – the rest was owed to the language barrier. They couldn’t speak Common with their throats and mandibles built for a chittering, chirping, clicking language. Even Common Sign was no help – they spoke that even worse. They had to rely on mechanical translators, which were notoriously terrible at picking up on the nuances of the difficult to document Greehloor tongue. Glishk had spent some time aboard a Greehloor-run bootlegging vessel. That had been during his first attempt at greatness. When they felt sociable they’d enjoyed poking and prodding him until he was hissing and the ruffled flaps of skin which normally were flush to his neck puffed up, all hot pink and neon yellow. They were just glands filling with fluorescent liquid – it was meant to scare things off and didn’t do him any actual good. It was popular now to have them removed, increasingly at (or before) birth. Another useless genetic holdover from a time long gone that would never be again. Another reminder that he was the dregs of the gene pool, that he was the sort of thing that looked scary for show, relied on cheap tricks to survive, not strength nor genius.

            The Greehloor passed by without acknowledging him, though it would have been hard to tell if it had, given that their faces were bony plates with varying patterns on them meant to mimic the foliage of their home world, luring in prey for the toothed tongue to snatch and drag into the mouth hidden beneath the false face. Very efficient, Glishk thought. He liked to think he’d learned a thing or two from his time living among them.

The story went that on the Stratian home planet, Narsov, they’d used to mainly sleep all day, forage at dawn and dusk, and spend the nights praying not to be eaten. Those were the Dark Ages, before the Mother ship brought them to the light. Those days were no more. The planet was a nuclear wasteland. So maybe it didn’t mean much at all, that the Stratians had been mid-food-chain at best. They were the ones who had lived long after the planet was an arid, poisoned husk.

            Glishk noticed Truly’s stalker once they passed beneath the awning of a hotel and spa. He was a Mitchdian, dressed similarly to Truly, in the style common to their generation, particularly the cosmopolitan, future professional class – lots of skin showing, lots of sheers and dangling jewelry, all very eye-catching, too elegant to call gaudy, too ostentatious to be sophisticated. He had a three-pronged piercing through his nose, rings up and down both ears, studs lining the hairless bridges of bone above both eyes. Not a hard man to follow.

            Truly was headed for one of the newer, honeycomb apartments, irregular and curved in shape, casting strange shadows across the street. The Mitchdian stranger started to close the distance between them. Was this his usual behavior, or was tonight different, was he about to try and speak to her? Grab her?

            At a loss, and with the distance between the stranger and Truly closing, Glishk acted on instinct. He caught up to the Mitchdian, and as Truly keyed her way into her building, shoved the stranger into the alleyway he was passing by.

            The stranger yelped and rounded on Glishk, eyes wide and brows drawn in surprise. When he saw Glishk he balked and backed up, hands in the air.

            “Watch where you’re going, man,” he said.

            Glishk growled and took a step forward; the Mitchdian stepped back.

            “The hell do you want?”

            Glishk stopped. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight, ears drooping. What now? Just give him a scare, Truly had said. Flash some teeth, shoot a little blood from your eyes. Like he could turn that on and off, like he was a goddamn faucet. Honestly.

            Meanwhile, the Mitchdian was giving him a once over. “Hey…you’re familiar. You wouldn’t, uh…happen to, you know. Be a prizefighter, would you?”

            Glishk tensed and glared. “No.”

            “I could’ve sworn I’d seen a guy just like—”

            “Different guy.”

            “Ok, ok, geez, just – what’s the deal?”

            “Stop following Truly.”

            “Stop following – what?”

            “Stop. Following. Truly.”

            “I got it the first time, man, just – I’m not following anybody, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            Glishk scoffed. “Sure.”

            The Mitchdian got a crafty look in his narrowed eyes. He crossed his arms as the fear left him, and he looked at Glishk with a more clear-headed consideration. “Truly set you up, huh? Thought she’d scare me off with, what, some Stratian guard dog she paid off to slap me around?” He gave a dry, incredulous laugh.

            Glishk bristled. “She didn’t pay me,” he spat.

            “Then you’re even more of a sucker than I thought.”

            This wasn’t going well. The longer they spoke, the more self-conscious Glishk became. He hunched his shoulders, curling further in on himself. He should have psyched himself out more, gotten the blood pumping beforehand.

            “Look, we got off on the wrong foot. It’s not anybody’s fault but Truly’s – meeting any other way, who knows, maybe we’d have been buddies. I’m Olip. What’s your name, kid?”

            “I don’t care who you are. Don’t call me kid.”

            “Touchy, Jesus. Ok, I’ll call you Jawbreaker.”

            “I’m _not_ a prizefighter.”

            “I didn’t say you were,” Olip said, looking down at Glishk through lidded eyes.

            Glishk swore under his breath. He’d walked right into the Mitchdian’s trap, and they both knew it, judging by the smug look on the bastard’s face. That was the horrible name they’d given him in the Spine. He hadn’t even broken that many jaws. Not more than anybody else. If anything, he was the one always getting his jaw broken, which – well.

            It didn’t feel nice, being the butt of the joke all the time. It felt even less nice, when you were always realizing it far too late, long after everybody had stopped laughing.

            “Don’t feel too bad about it. I recognized you anyway, from the start. You know you’re, uh. Hard to miss,” Olip said, sliding a long, slender pipe of blown glass out of a pocket in his sleeveless jacket. “Do you mind if I—”

            “Yes.”

            “You know, you’ve got those scars,” Olip said, gesturing vaguely at his face as he brought the pipe to his mouth. It glowed amber when he pressed a button on his side. His eyes fluttered as he inhaled, closed when he exhaled vapor, turning his face to the side. It smelled like overripe fruit, and beneath that something more pungent. Some synthetic tranquilizer, if Glishk had to guess. Not particularly exciting – legal, even, just a mild relaxant. People said it cleared the mind, helped you think. Glishk believed no such thing. Probably they were all getting ulcers on their brains. He coughed into his fist and glared.

            “I see what’s happened,” Olip said. “Truly’s played us both. But don’t feel too bad about it. Don’t take it personal, or anything. She’s fooled smarter guys than us, but she’s not as good as she thinks she is. She’s even sort of stupid, really, long-term wise.”

            “You’ve been following—”

            “Yeah, we’ve established that, move past it. Look, kid, I sort of feel for this predicament you’re in, and it behooves us both to get on the same page, so I’ll explain it to you, what’s happened here. Truly and I started going out a few months ago. She wanted something exciting, wanted to go to the Spine. I’d never been. I’m a rule-follower, you know, but here’s this incredible new girlfriend, calling me boring and chicken if I don’t check it out with her, so hey, we go, and it’s not long before I realize this nice new chick isn’t so nice, she’s a fricking con-artist. Our second date we saw you fighting. The first was to a noodle stand, by the way. She eases you into these things. So I’m guessing that’s the hole she dug you out of, and why she thought you’d spook me, what with having seen you get the living shit beat out of you and still come back for more so many times and all.”

            “Truly and I work together. At the help-desk.”

            “Really? Small world. Well, that’s where the interest in you came from, then.”

            “No. She’s interested in Stratian Standard. In languages. She’s a student.”

            Olip laughed. “Hey, I get it, she’s hardly a master con, but she’s no slouch either. Seriously, what’d she do to put you up to this? I gotta know.”

            “It’s just a favor. That’s all. I don’t know, she got me off the hook for some problem at work.”

            “I guess you thought she and you were pals, huh. Sorry about that.”

            Glishk shook his head and glared, took a step forward. “That hardly changes anything. You’ve still been following her.”

            “Because she owes me a lot of money. I don’t have any way of getting it from her through the authorities, we made it all in the Spine, you know? She’d meet these rich idiots at the prizefights, most of the time so high it hardly mattered what she said, and while she was keeping them entertained, getting information, I was grabbing valuables. Sometimes she’d trick them – instead of them putting credits into the betting pool, they’d get wired to her account. I haven’t seen a cent of all that money. She used me up, and now I’ve got nothing to show for it. You think you’re her buddy? I thought we were _dating_. What can you do? I’m hoping she’ll get sick of seeing me, and just give me my share so I’ll leave her alone. I haven’t done nothing to her. Messing with her peace of mind by reminding her what she owes me, that’s a public service practically.”

            “That’s stolen money. It’s not yours, you aren’t entitled to it. Stop following her and forget about it.”

            “What are you, a hall monitor? I can’t, not now. All the time and work I put into it? And with the crowd she got me into – there are other debts that’ve gotta get paid, you know? Tell Truly, soon as she tosses me my share, she won’t ever see me again. She can’t complain, I settled on a sixty-forty split. Tell Truly to fork it over and I’m gone.”

            “Tell her yourself,” Glishk spat. “I’m not a fucking messenger.”

            “Well, you weren’t such a great guard dog either. Carry a bat or something next time. Can’t you guys cry blood? Do that to the next guy, that might freak him out.”

            “There won’t be a next guy,” Glishk said, then turned and left the alley.

            “You’ll tell Truly what I said, right? You and I are pals now, ‘cause we’re in the same sort of predicament, you know? I sympathize. I feel your pain, man. So you’ll tell her?”

            Glishk walked to the lifts. His apartment was in the workers’ district, the low-budget housing relegated to Junction’s menial laborers. The room was large enough for three people to stand up in. There was hardly space to turn around in the bathroom. There were cabinets recessed into the walls, a multi-function microwave. The bed was the size and shape of a coffin, a bunk set into the wall he had to use a little stepping stool to reach and wedge himself into. He always shuffled as far back as he could go, until his back was pressed to the wall and he was curled in a ball, looking through a slit in the sheet he’d pinned over the opening through which he could see the door and the blinking red light on its sensor. He’d taped a couple glossy pictures ripped out of magazines left in the Break Room onto the door as well. They were in color, but in the dark he saw them in shades of gray. One was an ad for the Reserve on Vosk, where all kinds of animals lived happily in the biomes that the Stratians had crafted for them there. Some were from other planets entirely – planets where they were endangered or extinct altogether. Another picture was of an Earth man and woman standing side by side, smiling. The man held a puppy. Both of their wrists were shown. It was an ad for watches, he thought, or for dogs, or dental implants maybe, since their teeth appeared very regular. Glishk was one of very few outsiders to have been to Earth, so he considered himself fairly expert. That had been during his second attempt at securing glory for the Glom.

            The trip hadn’t lasted long. Just about everything in the air and soul made his eyes burn and his throat feel like it was shrinking to the size of a straw. Plus, he wasn’t supposed to be there, given it was a Protected Planet and all, according to those snobby Elani, like they ran the place. He’d crashed into some mountains beside a cornfield and spent two weeks repairing his escape shuttle enough to send a distress signal. That was when the Greehloor merchants found him, and being in their debt and all, and glad to be pursuing his Glom-glorifying destiny, he hadn’t really minded that they’d made him do all the dirty work, like scrubbing all the machinery in the ship by hand and hauling cargo.

            He didn’t want to be stupid and weak, the kind of person Truly could trick so easily by dangling any sort of kindness before his eyes, so he tried to hate her and be angry instead. It was hard work. Every time he lay down, his body reminded him how much it hurt. It would always hurt – that had been guaranteed the moment he was born, a mechanical error, and hadn’t gotten any of the procedures or implants all other Stratians received during and right after incubation. He’d gotten some of them later, the ones he absolutely couldn’t live without, but the success rates at that stage were low. There was residual nerve damage. There was a creeping numbness at the ends of his fingers and toes, sharp twinges when he flexed or stretched certain muscles. His machinery was louder, too, on account of working harder, or maybe of being in worse condition. He could hear himself whirring, when he lay in the darkness of his coffin-bed, the port on the back of his neck blinking green where he’d plugged himself in for the night, so his overtaxed body wouldn’t have to work so hard just to keep him alive at least for part of the day. That was embarrassing, being able to hear his inner workings like that.

            Sometimes when his mind was too idle, he found himself fixating upon the organic and mechanical noises and sensations of his body, worried that if he didn’t pay attention and regulate them, they’d fall out of rhythm – his heartbeat and breathing stopping, the cybernetics inside him shutting off. There was no way he could fall asleep when he got like that, so instead he tried to imagine all the things he might do for the Glom, and how once he’d brought it honor, he wouldn’t be Z-class anymore. He’d get promoted back to where he once was – Y-class, or even X – maybe V or W if he worked very hard and lived long enough to do some good.

            It would be a great thing indeed, to finally earn what everyone else seemed to be granted freely at birth, and then he would know how it felt to be one of his people at last.

            He wouldn’t let himself be tricked again, tempted by kindness. Who could be kind to a nobody, a disgrace and an outcast? Not until he proved himself and moved up in the world would anybody bother being kind. Until then, he’d have to be stronger, and learn to recognize illusions.


End file.
